During the 2017 season, 150 volunteers dedicated 6,000 hours of service to the Garden Share programs. This was an increase of 40 volunteers and almost 1,500 hours from the previous year when the VISTA was not present. In 2018, 300 volunteers worked with Garden Share through Earth’s Table, events, and gleaning. They dedicated nearly 6,000 hours of their time..
Community Food Share is a food bank fighting hunger in Boulder and Broomfield Counties by providing access to fresh, nutritious food through local partners and its onsite and mobile pantries.
These are the most successful marketing strategies used by the Garden Share program at Community Food Share: • Word of mouth was one of the most successful ways to get volunteers into the Garden Share programs. Volunteers that were already part of Community Food Share’s work were interested in how to get involved in other ways..
Donor Relations Outreach to donors began in the winter of 2016/2017 when the first VISTA arrived. An Excel file was created that included all local farms, their contact information, types of produce they grow, and an indication of if they were a new or returning…
Teaching healthy eating to our clients promotes nutrition as well as knowing where our food comes from. Encouraging community members to make their own food and learn new skills gives them the opportunity to take control of their health and wellbeing. The year two VISTA was able to work with cooking and nutrition through the “demo kit” project. There were community members and clients of the CAC who came into the community kitchen at the CAC to test their recipes and teach them to other community members during food bank distribution in the same building..
The gardens at the Koppel Community Garden in Pullman and at the CAC office building can be used to teach clients about how to grow their own food which promotes self-sufficiency. The gardens are also a great place to host large groups of volunteers for work days during the summer. From the Community Educator program, the director of the Community Food department wanted to take the information presented in the cooking and gardening demos and create “demo kits”..
Engaging the community in gardening, cooking and nutrition education has been about continuing the dialogue with key community stakeholders and members from the Palouse Tables Project. Maintaining and engaging those relationships as well as cultivating new relationships are all key components of community engagement. Cultivating community engagement was a key component of the Community Educator Program..
The Community Visioning Process is a grassroots approach to planning with community input. Community input is valuable because it provides insight that organizations may not be aware of, builds relationships, and invites collaborative approaches to solving regional issues. After the initial data collection phase of the Palouse Tables Project, there was an analysis of the data phase..
Mapping is a great way to communicate data, especially at the regional level. It makes a diagram out of data that correlates spatially, making information easier to grasp. In the initial stages of the Palouse Tables Project, mapping was used to communicate statistics about the Palouse region..
Facilitating Community Engagements is all about starting a dialogue with potential key community stakeholders and members, maintaining and engaging those relationships, and working together where needed..